Trump Rejects AI Slowdown Calls: Winning AI Means Winning Everything

According to the Financial Times, Trump told reporters at the Doonbeg golf course in Ireland on Sunday, "We are leading in AI... frankly, I want to keep it that way, because whoever wins AI wins everything." He acknowledged that some "guardrails" could be set, but characterized safety warnings as "negative forces" hyping "things that won't happen."

The remarks directly responded to calls for a slowdown jointly issued that same weekend by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI's Sam Altman, and Elon Musk, and have sharply intensified the AI regulation debate in U.S. politics.

The market impact of this dispute cannot be ignored. The Trump administration's hardline stance means the likelihood of large-scale AI regulation legislation in the U.S. in the near term has dropped significantly, and the R&D investment pace of tech giants is not expected to be forcibly constrained by policy. At the same time, deepening bipartisan divisions over regulatory approaches have made the legislative outlook even more uncertain.

Safety Warnings Trigger Industry Shock

The flashpoint for this controversy was the resignation statement of Jacob Coxon, a former researcher at Anthropic. Coxon warned that "the people building AI genuinely believe it could kill all of us before the end of this decade." He said employees developing such systems are "genuinely terrified" about humanity's future.

Amodei responded with a lengthy post on Saturday, calling on the industry to "slow down the pace of advancing AI model capabilities" and proposing three specific measures: introducing third-party evaluators to oversee frontier companies, establishing industry safety standards, and promoting global regulatory coordination. Altman and Musk subsequently publicly endorsed the proposals.

Amodei also stressed that any slowdown must be limited to avoid giving competitors an opportunity to overtake—a statement reflecting the industry's internal dilemma between safety and competition.

Trump Administration: Self-Regulation Over Regulation

Facing industry calls, the Trump administration's response was to kick the ball back to the companies themselves.

David Sacks, Trump's former AI czar and current member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, posted on X, directly addressing tech companies: "Stop pretending you need anyone's permission." "You are setting the frontier, go advance it... conditioning it on your preferred regulatory framework looks like extortion of the public and the political system."

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, urged against "panic" and warned that if Congress rushes AI regulation, "we will lose this race, and that is a threat to every American." He also said a balance must be struck between national security and model safety, and called for tech executives and lawmakers to meet at the White House.

Democrats Pressure, Bipartisan Divisions Deepen

Democrats launched fierce attacks on the Republican response. Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego accused Johnson and Trump of "failing to meet the moment," countering that "once AI becomes truly dangerous, it won't care whether we are Americans or people from other countries."

At a campaign rally in Athens, Georgia, Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff criticized Trump's response and accused tech giants of digging "bunkers" while warning of human extinction. He called on the president to "act swiftly, send inspectors to frontier labs, demand legislation from Congress, and lead the world in an AI treaty."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Republicans "abdicated their responsibility" and called on Congress to "take immediate, decisive action" to slow AI development to protect the American people.

Notably, there is not a complete lack of bipartisan consensus. According to reports, a group of Democratic and Republican House members jointly introduced the Frontier Act in July, seeking to establish a national AI safety and oversight framework. The bill's co-author, Massachusetts Democratic Representative Lori Trahan, wrote on X: "Safety researchers are resigning, powerful AI models are breaking out of labs, and companies are still racing ahead. It's time for Congress to get off the sidelines and do its job."

International Coordination Unresolved

At the international level, AI safety also faces coordination challenges. According to reports, Trump and leaders of other major powers have had preliminary discussions on AI guardrails and agreed to establish a dialogue mechanism, but no substantive high-level meeting outcomes have emerged so far. AI safety advocates are pinning hopes on the upcoming leaders' summit to advance further negotiations.

While welcoming Amodei's proposals, Coxon also stressed the need for "more engagement with other countries," likening building superintelligence to "summoning an alien species." He said, "Think of it as an alien mind we don't fully understand—that's actually quite terrifying."

Currently, the Trump administration's position is largely clear: on AI regulation, competitive logic takes precedence over safety logic. How this orientation will affect the trajectory of the U.S. AI industry and whether the international community can achieve effective coordination on AI governance remain core variables that the market continues to watch closely.